


The Worth of Steel

by LokiCobalt (orphan_account)



Series: The Origin of a Hero [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Afghanistan, Afghanistan Angst, Aftermath of Torture, BAMF Tony, Blood and Torture, Coffee is Necessary for Tony's Coherency, Female Tony Stark, Females Dressing Up as Males, Forced Crossdressing, Forced Masculinization, Gen, HELP THEY ARE HAVING EMOTIONS, Honestly Tony What The Hell Are You Thinking, Howard And Maria Wanted a Boy, Howard Is An Okay Dad When He Is Not Drunk or Obsessing Over Captain America, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Insomnia, Maria Stark's Bad Parenting, Origin Story, Poor Tony Stark, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slightly Alternate Origin Story, Tattooed Tony, The Arc Reactor is AWESOME, The Entire World Thinks Tony is a Boy Because Howard and Maria Suck as Parents, Tony Angst, Tony Being Tony, Tony Constantly Surprises Everyone, Tony Doesn't Understand Normal Feelings, Tony Feels, Tony Had a Fucked Childhood, Tony Has Issues, Tony Is Not Helping, Tony Logic Is The Best Logic, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Doesn't Actually Like People, Tony Stark Doesn't Like Being Handed Things, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is A Bloody Genius, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Will Fuck Your Shit Up, Tony Stark in Afghanistan, Tony Stark is The Master of Twisty Evasiveness and No One Can Ever Understand, Tony Stark is a Hyperactive Insomniac Man-Child with more Issues than Playboy, Tony Stark was Born Badass, Tony Stark’s brain doesn’t work like other people’s, Tony has No Brain to Mouth Filter, Tony has trouble paying attention to one thing at one time, Tony is Awesome, Tony is In Afganistan For Three Years, Tony is Kind Of Socially Awkward, Tony's Backstory, Tony's Emotional Responses are BROKEN, Tony-centric, WARNING: Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:21:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LokiCobalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s walking around with a bomb in her chest.</p><p>There is a hole sawed deep into her sternum, the size of her fist, a hollow cavity of cold metal surrounded by ugly scars, and she can feel her lungs touch it with every breath. She can feel her heart pound against it, as if reminding her that she has one each time it brushes against the cold metal.</p><p>Stark men are made stronger than steel. Her father always told her this. She isn't a man, her father and mother made her one anyways, and no one in the world knows the truth. Now there is a good chance no one will ever know. She could die in this hell forsaken cave, and the world would be safe in it's belief of her masculinity, safe in the ignorance brought on by her parents' lies, only a handful knowing the truth. Tony isn't Steel.</p><p>Tony is Iron, Tony is Titanium, and Tony is Glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Iron

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

**136KRONOS**

**The Worth of Steel**

**Chapter 01 - Iron**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

**May 2006**

**Afghanistan**

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

It is sweltering hot.

Tony is sweating in uncomfortable pools of smelly sweat that soak through her bulletproof vest and Italian suit, and it’s becoming hard to breathe with her chest bound tightly under the expensive binder, preventing anyone from knowing she is not, as they have all been told since her birth, a man. The Humvee does not have a CD player, which is a felonious error in Tony’s mind. Something Tony hopes she can remedy as soon as she gets back to the states. These fine men and women are risking their lives for freedom, justice, and the American Government, and the least they deserve is some sort of good music and Apple Pie on hand whenever the hell they want it. Also, air conditioning would be nice. Rhodey would probably berate her because of the dozens of different rules and regulations she is more than likely breaking by doing something as simple as bringing her CD player on board, but that is why he is in the hum-drum-Vee, instead of sitting by Tony’s side in the Fun-Vee. Still, not even all the AC/DC in the world can make up for being stuck in a cramped smelly van, with cramps from hell she cannot even take care of without having to explain to them why she doesn’t have a dick in her shorts, with these downers.

Seriously, this is the Fun-Vee. Why are they not having fun?

“I feel like you’re driving me to a court martial. This is crazy. What did I do?” She complains good-naturedly, sliding her iron mask on with the kind of ease only people with many years of practice can perfect.

Tony has had her entire life to build the perfect masks, ones not even the best can see through. It helps that she was blessed with such a low voice, for a girl at least, even if she is a feminine in the looks department for a man. Her mother was ultra-feminine, which helps, because people just assume that she is such a girlish-looking-guy because she takes after her mother, and they never suspect that she is a woman underneath all her masks and fancy suits. And, It is so easy. Without a second thought, she is slipping into the confident façade of Tony Stark, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Merchant of Death. Like a well-choreographed dance where she knows exactly where she has to be, exactly what moves to make, to captivate her audience. It is as easy as standing in front of the Jericho, close enough for the best show. Just near enough for the shockwave to run fingers through her black hair in acknowledgement, without knocking her onto her ass, near enough for explosion to rattle the ice in her expensive tumbler of Scotch without filling it with debris. Even the soldiers start to relax, and a few shy smiles spread around the cramped vehicle like a wildfire.

“You intimidate them.” Someone says. For some reason that is funny to her, and she chocks back laughter. How can she be intimidating? She is short and slim for a man, perfectly gorgeous for a girl, but as the man they think she is, it is very hard to imagine being terrified or intimidated by a five-foot-eight-inch man weighing in at only one-hundred-forty pounds. What could be so terrifying about that? To them she’s a short wiry bean-pole-thin man, the only thing intimidating about her is her personality, which she has been told many times makes her seem as grandiose as a twelve-foot tall giant. She says something witty, something snarky in true Stark fashion, then they are all laughing, and the tension is just gone. Even the heat seems to feel better, more relaxed. Smithson twists around, as if Tony has made his day, just by sitting here and playing the pretending game. “Sir I – I have a question to ask.”

“Yes, please.” Because, right now, Tony cannot see any questions she would not want to answer. Okay. That is a lie. She can think of many, but they would have to know every single one of her darkest secrets to be able to ask them. As every single one of her secrets are, well, secret, she cannot foresee any inquiries she would not be able to answer.

“Is it true that you went twelve for twelve with last year’s Maxim cover models?” He asks, as Tony takes a sip of her scotch, ice cubes clinking against glass.

“That’s an excellent question.” She answers. She does not really confirm it, but it is enough for them to send her salacious looks as if she had. The truth is, no, she did not, although she totally would have if she could have. She did, however, kiss every single one of them breathless while her lips were painted with a non-toxic hallucinogenic she invented, leading them all to believe they had a fantastic time. She got to watch twelve absolutely gorgeous women pleasure each other, like the sick bastard pervert she is, and they got to leave with the belief that every single one of them had a great time.

The thing is, people expect Tony to be a playboy like her father, but the truth is she is nothing like that man. At least not where sex is concerned. She cannot have sex. Sex requires being naked, and being naked means someone would realize she is not a man. That would be a bad thing, even if it sucks being a twenty-six year old virgin. There have been worse things, people more pathetic than she, but it doesn’t change anything. Her parents were cruel to force her to be a man. Still, people are grade-A perverts, and if a depraved drunken asshole is what the press wants, then that is what she will give them. Her supposed persona as Tony Stark is her greatest invention. “Anything else?”

Forrest hilariously puts his hand up in the air as if they were children in school or something. Not that Tony ever did that, but not everyone can be Tony Stark. She was too cool to do anything except correct the teachers. “Is it cool to take a picture with you?”

That is not the worst thing Tony has done to make someone’s day. “Yes, it’s very cool.” The boy’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. Tony only barely manages to refrain from giggling at his childlike enthusiasm. “I don’t want to see this on your Myspace page. Please, no gang signs.” The boy’s face falls. Seriously? Tony could eat this kid alive and she is not even trying. This is ridiculous. “No, throw it up, I’m kidding. Yeah, peace, I love peace. Be out of a job with peace.” As that Vanity Fair reporter so perfectly put it. Merchant of Death. She sells war and death like a pro.

The hummer one up from them blows up. Tony has seen explosions so many times that this one barely even registers. It is child’s play. A blip on her radar. After the Jericho, this is as small as a child’s toy rocket. It takes her a second to pick up that this one came from the convoy. It is not supposed to explode. She has not made it explode. Tony is not used to being in situations where things explode of their own accord. She is always involved in the exploding. Then there is screaming. Harrow slams on the brakes and starts shouting orders.

“What’s going on?” she yells, panicked, because maybe if someone could explain this to her, it might not be happening. She wants someone to answer her, tell her it is a drill, a joke, fuck, even an accident would do fine, because right now, Tony can only think that the convoy has been attacked; and that does not happen to Tony Stark. Harrow jerks the door open and lurches out, firing as she goes.

Tony knows that gun. She designed that fucking gun. Harrow gets half a dozen shots off then falls. All Tony can think is that she was not using the gun correctly, and that is so fucking stupid because she has been shot and she is dead, and didn’t Tony design those bullet-proof vests as well? Those are Stark Tech. Her Tech. It does not make sense. She made these vests; she knows how tough they are. Triple weave, flexible as a fleece jacket, hard as three-inch reinforced steel. She can recite their molecular makeup without a single thought. There is nothing that can get through these vests.

Smithson shouts “Stay with Stark” to Forrest, and then he jumps out too. Tony is pulled down, but not before she sees Smithson pulverized in a fucking blast that cracks the car windshield. Forrest hollers “Son of a bitch!” right as he jumps out of the car too.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!” Tony screams, panic making her voice high and sharp, the words running together in a blur.

“Stay! Here!” Forrest makes it two steps before a volley of bullets that drops him to the sand, and turns the Humvee into a noodle strainer, hits him. Then there is nothing but gunshots, and Tony’s drawn and fatigued breaths in the suddenly airless Humvee. She has to get out. She cannot breathe. She is sitting in a huge car with a metaphorical neon target sign, which is being shot at with weapons that should not rightly exist. Nothing can get through her tech. Nothing. The noise outside is deafening, and surrounded by the blank light brown sandy landscape, Tony is one vast dark target in her suit. Her shoes slide in the sand and they cannot grip and it takes several awkward steps before she gets enough momentum to run, each breath pounding through her chest This Is NOT Happening! This. Is. Not. Happening! She hurls herself into a relatively safer place, out of sight in a small dip in the nearby sand dunes, and grabs her phone. Tony does not have the first idea who she is going to call. Rhodey? Ice pours through her veins, cutting through her panic with pure dread. _Oh Rhodey! Oh god!_ He almost got into Tony’s Humvee. _Please, please let him be somewhere else_. She does not know what she is going to say. _Help under fire by weapons that should not exist because the weapons they have can ignore Stark Tech, and nothing ignores Stark Tech except Stark Tech!_

_The only thing that can get through Stark Tech; is Stark Tech!_

_Oh god!_

_The only thing that can get through Stark Tech; is Stark Tech!_

With a whine, a bomb slams down less than four feet away. More than close enough for Tony to see the logo in the heartbeat before it explodes. You know you are screwed when the exploding bomb literally has your name on it! There is nothing for a split second except the ringing in her ears. Then there pain when she hits the ground and a deep, chilling numbness in her chest. Light shafts down through her lashes, a washed out blue sky looming mockingly above her. Tony tries to breathe, but she seems to have forgotten how. She manages to lift her head, tries to see what is going on. Her shirt is splattered over with wet warm rust red that Tony thinks at first is mud, until it starts to spread. She fumbles at her shirt with numbing hands, yanks it open to the ragged mess that had once been the last word in Stark Industries’ protective clothing, shredded by the last word in Stark Industries’ fragmentation bombs. She coughs before suddenly the pain flares to life, and she feels pure agony. White-hot pain against the hazy black of oncoming unconsciousness.

\--

She is awake.

She is awake, and she is screaming.

Why would they waste anesthesia on a hostage that is probably going to die anyways? Why waste medicine on a hostage who is supposed to be dead? They will be paid if she dies. They will get more from her if she lives, but they will be paid what they are owed if she dies.

So, yes, she is awake when they strap her down with coarse hemp ropes to their makeshift operating table, harsh light from bare bulbs shining blindingly bright in her eyes. She is awake when the doctor digs out all the little bits of metal and desert that had perforated her skin. She gets to watch as the man rips open her already shredded chest to pull out sharp barbs of his own technology. Her own weapons. She can feel the serrated edge of the blade, not a scalpel, something else.

She fights for all she is worth, struggling away from both hands gentle and rough.

If she thought it was painful when he dug around in her chest, it had nothing on the pain that came later. Nothing on the agony caused by the quiet little doctor as pried open her ribcage, sawed a perfect little circle into her sternum, and attached something heavy, foreign, and big straight on to her actual, still-beating heart. She felt it, those delicate steady fingers deep inside her where nothing but fluids and flesh was ever supposed to be, fingers brushing against her heart thumping weakly in her chest. She does not pass out. She cannot pass out. Wide eyes rolling around the room, incoherent with pain and confusion, until the doctor is stitching her back up like a torn teddy bear, and she can make out a soft muttered apology vibrating across her chest as he leans down to bite the end of the thread.

Then there is nothing again.

\--

Tony wakes up gasping and wide-eyed. Her hands are free; she is no longer strapped sown. There is a tube and she can feel it rubbing her cheek, inside her nose, and down her throat. The thing is terrible and horrifying to her. She grasps it with numb fingers and pulls it out. She pulls, and pulls until it is gone. Her throat feels raw and ragged. She can almost smell the water and she turns to grab at the source, but she knocks the tin can over onto the ground. Her muscles are weak, as if she has been lying in bed for days, her chest is sore, wires that should not be there, and she is pulling at them only to stop at the sound of another voice.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Tony looks up at the calm voice and sees a tall man. He is not young, not particularly muscular, and not armed. Tentatively, Tony labels him as non-hostile, although there was a distinct lack of friendliness, or unfriendliness for that matter, in the man's voice. She turns her attention back to the wires, which ended in a mass of gauze wrapped around her chest. She can feel something hard and heavy as stone in her chest, right between her breasts, and it is hard to breath. She can feel it against her lungs and heart. She clawed at the gauze until she could see, and she holds back a wave of nausea. The thing in her chest looks like an ambitious kid's science fair project, but why in God's name would they do that to her? What is its purpose? Why is it attached to a car battery?

"What the hell did you do to me?" she whispers

"I saved your life." Tony has only part of her attention on the man's explanation. When she is tossed a glass bottle containing bits of shrapnel, she stares blankly at it, trying to understand.

"What is this?" She does not mean just the thing in her sternum, but the cave and why she was still alive, and why did they take her. Why is she alive? They could not have been planning to kidnap her. Who could have expected that she would be separated from the soldiers, wounded rather than killed outright in the explosion? For that matter, how had they taken her? Had they killed everyone else in the convoy and then come to loot the corpses? Was Rhodey dead? It just did not make any sense. There had not been any hostilities in that area for weeks which was why they had set the demo there. Obie assured her it would be safe. And now she is in a cave with an unfamiliar man, her lifelong secret out in the open to be seen by his eyes.

She does not have time to figure out any answers, before the doors she had not noticed, crash open loudly. Automatically she obeys the man's instruction to put her hands on her head and stand. Haphazardly dressed, but well-armed, men poured into the room. Too well armed. They have Stark guns, and not just old stock weapons seized during raids, but shiny new, recent designs. Add that to the fragmentation missile that took her down and it is not hard to figure out. Her stomach clenches in horror. They are using her guns, guns she designed to protect American soldiers. How long had they been using them? How many Americans has she helped kill? And most importantly, were they double dealing? Was her company dealing under the table to terrorists?

She hears them talking absently, as if from a distant whisper, as the man, the doctor, translates the demand to give these people her newest, best, and most efficient weapon. The terrorist is right; Tony is the most famous mass murderer in American history. And she smirked behind it all, fucking smug, fucking proudly happy, because she was helping to defend her country, wasn't she? Was that not the truth? Was that not what made her father a hero? Her father helped design the atom bomb, and he did not hand it over to the enemy. Neither would Tony.

Neither would Tony.

She is Anthony Edward Stark. She made it through her fucked up childhood without ending up in a mental institution, she can get through this. She is a Stark. Stark men are made of stuff stronger than steel. She may have the body of a girl, but her father and mother made damn sure that she was a Stark male through and through.

"I refuse," she said, feeling numb, determined, and horrified at the same time.

\--

She thought they would kill her, torture her first of course, probably, but maybe, just maybe, they would miscalculate and go too far. After all, she is already in horrible shape, drying out like all alcoholics do in rehab, and then there is blood loss, massive physical trauma, pieces of her own missile coming home to nest in her cold black heart, and that did not count the fucking electromagnet and car battery settled in to her chest like a fancy piercing.

Starks are made of stuff stronger than steel.

Starks are iron.

Starks are Invincible.

\--

Then they discover the joys of water play.

Drowning while being electrocuted is a fantastically creative torture to put her though, considering their technical limitations. Not that Tony can think about it clearly at the time. For her mind, it was all shouting and futile struggling against the hands pushing her under, trying to keep the car battery close enough to keep the wires from ripping out of her chest while her arms and hands shook and jittered from the jolts running through the incompletely waterproofed connections. All the while, she is trying not to breathe in water, trying to gulp in air during the fractional seconds when she is pulled out for them to shout the name of her newest creation in her ears. Jericho! Jericho! Jericho! Each time she snarls, struggles, and tells them to fuck off, they begin again. She should drop the battery into the water. She should let it slip through her fingers and end it all herself. However, she is a Stark, and she is far too stubborn for her own good.

It feels endless. A Loop of _Gasp! Jericho! Fuck You! No! Struggling! Cannot Breathe! Cannot Breathe!_ Repeat.

Lightheaded from pain and lack of oxygen, she remembers her dad talking to her about the arc reactor, and out of nowhere, she sees how simple it would be to make it. To mold it perfect, small, and actually useful. She could see it in her mind, shining, glowing, perfect, and small enough to fit in her own hand.

Or in her chest.

\--

Tony should have said yes that day, to get them off her back, but she refuses to back down.

Howard Stark was the sort of man who would have spit in the eyes of the enemies, and laughed while they tortured him. He would have fought to his dying breath. Howard Stark would have laughed his ass off as they finally decided to kill him, and his last words would have been remembered by the whole world. He would have gone out with a bang.

Maria Stark would have gone out with a smile on her perfect rose red lips. She would have been as cruel as vicious to them as her torturers were to her. Maria Stark would have seduced them like a snake charmer in her element, and those who would have tortured her, would have fallen to their knees to do her bidding.

Tony even imagines her old butler, Jarvis, her AI’s namesake, would have been polite to a fault to the very end. He would have been the type of man to stand tall and proud with every hit, and politely ask for another the entire time. Edwin Jarvis was the kind of man who could stay calm and level in any situation.

Tony grew up in this world, surrounded by people so strong none could have beaten them down.

Tony is the child Howard and Maria Stark had so desperately wanted, a miracle considering her mother was not supposed to be able to have children. She was born three months early, at only four pound, seven ounces, and sixteen inches even, and she nearly killed her mother as they cut her out of her womb. She was not breathing when she was born, but she survived.

She survived her childhood, as her own mother and father hated her for simply being the wrong gender. She survived as they forced her to identify herself to the entire world as a man. She survived her mother, a vapid drunkard bitch who only cared how she looked to the public, who would hit Tony for so much as being in the same room on her worst days. Tony survived having Howard for a father. Abusive, cold, cruel, and he only saw her as a creation. She was not Steve Rogers, so she could not be perfect in his eyes.

Nevertheless, Tony fucking survived a childhood of abuse and neglect, and she can survive spending an unimaginable indeterminable about of time in a damp cave with only the quiet doctor and her torturers to speak to.

\--

_Well hello my beautiful behemoths! This end’s chapter one. For those wondering, yes, there will be an explanation for why I made Howard and Maria Stark so fucking terrible that they forced their daughter to pretend her whole life to be a man. I will actually go back and show her life as a child. In addition, I will explain things. However, for now, just accept that Tony is still the same, except female. ~KRONOS_

\--

Check out this AWESOME picture while you are here! <http://sayael.deviantart.com/art/IronMan-The-Origin-of-a-Hero-343861681>


	2. Black Hearted

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

**136KRONOS**

**The Worth of Steel**

**Chapter 02 – Black Hearted**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

**-.-.-.-.-.-**

Tony has been in this cave for nearly months.

Every day is a routine, and she can find a sick sort of comfort in this, because she can always steel herself for the day. Every day the doctor wakes her up with enough time for her to mentally prepare herself for the torture. Tony likes to think she is doing pretty well, because they underestimate her. The Ten Rings still see her as Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer of all time, but they also view her as a woman.

These men are not used to women being threats. They find her fascinating, because she is strong, and she refuses to break, even though the electromagnet is failing. The find her tempting, because she is warm and soft and they have not been with a woman for a long time. She is grateful that, no matter how cruel and hateful these men are, they appear to have enough morals to not rape her. In this, she respects them, because other terrorists are not so likely to be so kind. These men are cruel vicious monsters she will probably have nightmares for the rest of her life about, but rapists they are not. She knows they know how grateful she is, and she hopes none decides to try to break her that way.

Anyways, they see her as a woman, shocked though they are at the revelation of her true gender, and that is their mistake.

They talk without filtering their words, unaware that by now, with the doctor’s help, she knows the language. This is how she learns that they have not stolen the weapons, or bought them from another source she sells to, but that her company sold her weapons to them. This is how she learns their plans, how many they have in numbers, and where their bases are. This is how she learns of Obie’s betrayal.

That knowledge nearly breaks her, but instead she uses it to fuel her.

The electromagnet is failing, but Tony refuses to give in to these lunatics’ demands just yet. She has plans, oh such plans that she could easily use to get out of here if only she agrees so she can have the tools she will need. However, she cannot give in, because that means they will have won.

\--

This time, when they drag her back in and toss her on the floor, she does not get back up.

For the first few minutes, this is normal. Yinsen looks at the woman with pity, for he knows very well what Raza’s goons are doing to Stark in the other room. The girl is not made of iron, despite how she mutters to herself at night. Yinsen has heard her repeat the line so many times that it is etched upon his brain cells. Stark men are made of iron. She is not a man. Stark women are apparently made of Adamantium. When they haul her back and dump her to the cold ground, she is strung out on shock, pain, and terror, and she barely knows where she is.

The first time, Yinsen had tried to go immediately to her aid, and Stark had lashed out blindly and broken his glasses. Since that first encounter, when they dragged her in soaking wet and covered in bruises and cuts, they both know to give her several minutes to collect herself. When she finally gathers the strength for a sarcastic remark, however weak and thin, Yinsen knows that she is in the present again, and he takes that as the signal to go to his patient, give her a towel, clean up her wounds, and help her onto a cot. It never takes more than a few minutes.

This has been more than a few minutes.

When Yinsen realizes how long Stark has gone without a snarky quip or dry bit of witticism, he turns to frown at her. The girl is still huddled on her knees by the door, dripping wet and shivering violently. However acrimonious the implications, this is normal.

The waxy, gray pallor of her skin, however, is not.

Yinsen’s frown deepens, and he goes to Stark, drops down beside her, slowly lowering himself to her level. Stark is looking up at him, panting thinly, harshly, for breath. Her hands hang limp at her sides. She clearly does not have the strength to lift them right now. Her eyes are tracking Yinsen, though, and her pupils are equal. This is not confusion, or shock. This is not the look of someone who does not know what is going on.

The doctor reaches for the pulse in her slim wrist, and there he finds his answer. Stark’s heart is hammering, a faltering flutter as fast as a hummingbird's wings. Her breathing is too fast and too shallow, and there is a liquid wheeze under it. Water from the repeated dunking. Within a dozen more vying, irregular beats, Yinsen knows: this will not last long. Tony Stark’s heart is giving out as he watches. There is no time to speculate. He has to act immediately. Cardioversion with a car battery and half a dose of atropine will not be pleasant, but he will be damned if lets Stark die now. The woman is stronger than anyone he has ever met.

Yinsen surges to his feet and pounds on the metal door.

\--

Stark spasms once when Yinsen shocks her, eyes huge and dark, her hands grasping onto Yinsen’s wrist so tightly that he fears it will break, and then loses consciousness. There is no time to worry about it. Instead, Yinsen pulls back the wire and presses the stethoscope from his kit against the girl's chest, just beside the silent magnet, to listen hard for the heartbeat. It is stable. The rhythm is steady and normal.

Yinsen breathes a prayer of thanks, even as he pulls the forceps away and twists the loose wire back into place. The magnet hums back into life. Stark does not stir then. Nor does she stir when Yinsen brings the thin, scratchy towel from their basin and tosses it over her. Not even when the doctor turns back to his kit for rubber gloves and antiseptic. When he touches the small round burn on Stark's back, though, even the cool gel does not stifle the groan of protest.

"Back with me, Stark?" Yinsen asks.

Glassy brown eyes open to slits. She mumbles something, the words mashed together in a way that makes it difficult to understand. He thinks she asked, “What was that?”

"Cardioversion." Yinsen covers the burn with ointment, and then tapes a square of gauze over it. "You were having an episode of ventricular tachycardia. I used an electrical shock to reestablish your normal heart rhythm."

Stark grunts in what might be assent and then lets her eyes fall shut again. For a moment, it is quiet. Just the distant drip of water, the hum of the car battery, muffled movement outside the door, and the steady pulse beating against Yinsen’s fingertips. Yinsen looks down at her with a grim, tight smile. “Your heart is failing, Stark. There’s been some arrhythmia since your initial surgery, from the trauma and the electromagnet, but this is much worse."

“Tell me about it.” Stark attempts a chuckle. It comes out as more of a pained cough. "What can...?"

“What can I do? Not much.” Yinsen stands, running a hand across his face. “I don’t even have the tools for proper diagnosis here. They gave me what I needed to keep you alive.”

“It’s gonna kill me again, isn’it?” She whispers brokenly.

“And how much will they care, if you still refuse to build for them? You need a pacemaker, Stark.” Yinsen has not sugarcoated anything else about the woman’s condition. Why start now? If the news causes the girl to recoil it damned well should. “You need a pacemaker, if not an ICD, and I need the tools to implant one. I do not think they will give me very much to work with.”

Stark is silent at that, just watching him and Yinsen sees something dark sink behind the other’s eyes. Her lips pull into a sharp little grin, half-sad, half-devious, and all insanity.

“What do you need?” She asks. Yinsen eyes her speculatively, and sighs as he recites a list to the girl.

He is afraid of what this proud unbreakable woman is planning.

\--

That night, after the majority of the terrorists are asleep, leaving only guards to watch her from the cameras, she runs. They do not have many guards to watch her, because they underestimate her, and perceive her to be too weak and submissive to do something like this. She the guards at the monitors are sleeping. She could truly escape, build these things in a real lab, but the doctor is asleep, and she rather likes him. She steals some paralytics from their supplies for just in case, and injects a small dose into each terrorist, pocketing a small stash for herself.

She breaks apart their missiles, throwing the pieces she does not need with a gleeful smile. Palladium. This will be the core of the arc reactor. In the darkness and cool chilly open air, Tony gets to work on building the thing that will now keep her alive. Yinsen joins. “Stark, what are you doing? He hisses. “You should be running right now.”

“No point. I’d die before I was found. Come help me. I need your hands.” He comes over. "Unscrew the cap." Tony rubs her face. It's slick with sweat and dirt. Her undershirt is drenched and she has to keep drinking to stop from dehydrating. The tremors are getting worse. Glasses assures her they will get better, and he had better be right, because if the bastards here see she cannot work she will be completely fucking useless, and if Tony's lucky, they will just shoot her. The doctor is good at this though, and starts pulling out the missile's delicate insides without prompting. There is silence in their work as Tony makes use of the tools they have so she can build the Jericho.

"Who are these people?" Tony picks up a screwdriver, tries to roll it between her fingers. It makes two successful circuits before her hand jerks and drops the screwdriver with a clatter. She curses lowly in Dari.

"They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings." The doctor picks up the screwdriver. He knows just as well as she does that she already knows who they are, but that she needs something to distract her. He also knows she wanted to know more about the actual people, but she takes his reluctance as a sign he does not know. "You know, we might be more productive if you include me in the planning process."

"That slot there." Tony points out. "Tweezers." The doctor shrugs, and does as instructed. Tony picks up the metal carcass and throws it against the wall. It makes a satisfying crash. The man stares at her. Tony grins.

"And what is this?" he holds up the scrap of metal.

"Palladium. Point naught one five grams. We need at least one point six, so why don't you go break down the other eleven?" The quiet man does exactly that at Tony gets to work on other things. The arc reactor will be done soon. Soon she will not have to worry about being electrocuted every time they shove her head under water. She does not want to put this chunk of `poisonous radioactive metal into her hollowed out chest. She does not have a choice.

\--

The contents of the crucible are molten now. Tony squints through the brutal wall of heat over the forge, assessing the metal’s precise state and the color of its glow. Yes, it is time. She gives the doctor a significant nod. She wishes she could do this part herself. Her fingers actually ache with it, the itching need to handle such a crucial step personally. If they would quit fucking shaking, she could be doing it herself. But, alas, they will not stop their constant shaking, and he has to let the doctor do this. “Careful,” she blurts. “Careful, we only get one shot at this.”

“Relax,” Doc breathes, smiling. Incredibly, he seems to be taking his own advice. Tony even finds herself relaxing just a smidge. “I have steady hands. Why do you think you’re still alive, hmm?”

 _Right_. He is a surgeon. A life hanging on his manual dexterity is a piece of cake to him. He was literally trained for this. The knowledge is enough to let Tony stop hovering within six inches of the doctor’s side, moving all the way out to eighteen inches as they move to the workbench. She lets the battery clack gently onto the bench top, still wanting her hands free if something should happen. They both bend close over the mold as the doctor starts to pour. Tony stares without blinking, barely breathing. Her world has narrowed to the radiant heat off the molten metal and its glow streaming out of the receptacle. Her life depends on the next few seconds, on that metal going where it should, and she cannot control it. She cannot even help. Her life is entirely in the doctor’s hands right now.

Tony nearly faints with relief as all the igneous metal pours exactly where it is needed. This is the second time this man has saved her life.

“So what do I call you?” she asks.

“My name is Yinsen.” The doctor, Yinsen, says.

Tony repeats the name, and the last of the palladium vanishes under the greensand. She finally tears herself away from it, tilting his head to look Yinsen in the eye. “Nice to meet you.”

The doctor straightens up with a crooked, genuinely amused smile. “Nice to meet you too.”

\--

Tony spends the next sixteen hours or so working, until the sun is beating high and the heat is getting unbearable. Until the paralytic drugs should be wearing off. She will find out the exact timespan later, with a glance at Yinsen’s watch and a bit of mental math, but while those hours are actually passing, she is only barely concerned with time. Tony has a project, and she is working, and that is all that matters.

She cuts. She solders. She welds and coils, hammers and carves, molds, files, glues, etches, and builds. Until her fingers are cut and blistered from heat and sharp edges. The reactor takes shape under her bleeding fingers. It takes determination to push aside the pain from her damaged chest, more than she usually needs to ignore the pains, but she works through it anyway. The impossible machine taking shape below her stolen magnifiers and soldering iron is a work of genius.

At interims, Yinsen encroaches on his concentration with medical tools or water, and Tony does not fight the checkups. She drinks a little whenever she can spare a moment, and brushes off all suggestions of sleep. She will sleep when she is done. If she does not finish soon, the terrorists will get her tech, and then they will never escape. As is, she will be punished greatly, even if she manages to make it look like an accident as she has planned.

Finally, almost too late, it is complete. The palladium ring is strung through a handful of stabilizing and amplifying helixes, forming the delicate core of his greatest achievement. She has the core nested safely in its casing, which is reinforced, expatriated, and sealed. Through the lead-glass window on top, a bright eerie glow shines like a beacon. Yinsen moves quietly up beside her, leaning in to stare down at her masterpiece. The man breathes out a low, astonished sound. “That doesn’t look like a Jericho missile.”

 _Time to let him in on the secret._ “That’s because it’s a miniaturized arc reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home.” she taps one finger against the arc reactor. It is faintly warm, thrumming. “This should keep the shrapnel outta my heart.”

“But what could it generate?” A man after her black heart. Always know your equipment’s tolerances.

“If my math is right, and it always is, three gigajoules per second.” In Tony’s peripheral vision, Yinsen is trying to keep the astonishment off his face.

“That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes.” He gasps.

“Yeah.” Tony glances at the doctor. “Or something big for fifteen minutes.” For a moment they both sit, holding tight to their calm against the impossible glow.

“Did you have to make it glow?” Tony grins at the doctor, and holds up a cap for him to see, before spinning it over the blue, hiding the shining light from sight.. “The way it works, the energy it produces, makes it glow. I did not have to make the casing with glass, but it felt right.

“I like it.” Yinsen runs a finger across her arc reactor. “Your life is in here, and now anyone can see it.” Tony feels her heart stutter at that. The doctor is such a sap sometimes. “For something meant to be carried in your pocket, its cables are very short.”

“I’m not gonna carry it in my pocket.” She grimaces. He gives her a confused glance, opening his mouth to ask a question, and she grins. “I said it before, Yinsen, I’m gonna need your help for this.”

She pushes everything into a pile and hits it with a rocket. The pile goes up in smoke, and Tony drags Yinsen back into the cave. She cannot finish her plans yet. There is no way to escape without agreeing to these monsters, but she did not survive this long to just give in to these bastards. If it means being watched better, tortured longer, and torn apart every day, she will stay strong. For Yinsen, who looks at her with pride every time she spits a forced hateful rejection at these terrorists.

Yinsen goes pale as snow when she explains what they have to do, but it does not prevent him from doing it.

\--

If she thought him sawing into her sternum and digging out her flesh with a spoon was painful the first time, it is nothing on the sheer agony of having it done to her nearly healed body a second time. She feels her skin split and tear, her bones crack and splinter, her blood pool into the hollow cavity in her chest. She screams so loud she would, had she been lucid enough, have feared waking the men from their induced mini-comas.

Yinsen whispers softly in her ear for a second, words she cannot hear over the blinding pain, then there is a rag pressed to her lips, burning in her throat and nose, and then nothing but darkness.

\--

She wakes with the taste of copper in her mouth, the doctor attempting to breathe the life back into her lungs without the ability to press against her chest.

The ten rings are awake, but they do not suspect her of destroying all their supplies. They do not suspect that she induced a twenty-four hour coma in each of them using the paralytic drug they had only just bought from her. They up the security just in case, tripling her guards, and watchers. They talk of buying more weapons and supplies from their benefactor. The next shipment comes soon. Yinsen almost looks smug when Raza comes and tells her that he does not know how she did it, but she had better believe he will find out. Tony feels just as proud as he looks.

There is a bomb in her chest, and none of these bastards know.

\--

_Hello my freaky darlings! In case it was confusing, Tony has spent her entire life being trained to never give up. This is why she does not give in. I did not think it was realistic for her to have an electromagnet car battery in her chest for three years, however. The whole reason this story came to be was because I started wondering how everything would be changed if he was in the custody of the ten rings for three years instead of months. That being said, I am sorry if Tony putting her guards to sleep for twenty-four hours to build her arc reactor, but not escaping, sucks in your opinions. It was the only way I could see it happening when my muses struck. ~KRONOS_


End file.
